New conductive, cotton-based fiber developed for smart textiles sciencedaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sciencedaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A single strand of fiber created at Washington State University possesses the electrical conductivity of a polymer called polyaniline and the flexibility of cotton.
<p>A single strand of fiber developed at Washington State University has the flexibility of cotton and the electric conductivity of a polymer, called polyaniline. The newly developed material showed good potential for wearable e-textiles. The WSU researchers tested the fibers with a system that powered an LED light and another that sensed ammonia gas. While intrinsically conductive, polyaniline is brittle and by itself, cannot be made into a fiber for textiles. To solve this, the researchers dissolved cotton cellulose from recycled t-shirts into a solution and the conductive polymer into another separate solution. These two solutions were then merged together side-by-side, and the material was extruded to make one fiber. While more development is needed, the idea is to integrate fibers like these into apparel as sensor patches with flexible circuits. These patches could be part of uniforms for firefighters, soldiers or workers who handle chemicals to detect for
Smart Textiles Revolution: Conductive Cotton Fiber Developed miragenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from miragenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.